U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $189 million in total net inflows on Aug. 18 Eastern Time, according to SoSoValue. BlackRock’s IBIT led the group with $144 million in daily net inflows, bringing its cumulative historical net inflows to $61.4 billion. Fidelity’s FBTC followed with $23.92 million in daily net inflows and $10.02 billion in cumulative inflows. On the outflow side, VanEck’s HODL posted the largest daily net outflow at $16.92 million, while its historical cumulative net inflows stood at $1.07 billion. Separately, Hashdex said its spot Bitcoin ETF DEFI has begun a closure and liquidation process due to factors including asset size, trading liquidity, and operating costs. The fund ended trading on NYSE Arca on Aug. 17 and is set to be delisted afterward. Starting Aug. 18, the fund began liquidating its remaining Bitcoin holdings and expects to distribute cash liquidation proceeds to shareholders around Aug. 24. Bloomberg data showed DEFI had about $7.28 million in assets under management as of July 30. As of publication, total net assets across spot Bitcoin ETFs stood at $79.3 billion, with an ETF net asset ratio of 6.12% and cumulative historical net inflows of $52.28 billion.

A volunteer-led Bitcoin security effort said Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 was used to scan 501 open-source Bitcoin projects over two weeks, producing 7,958 findings, with 1,280 rated high-risk or critical. The campaign was organized after a July 30 Coldcard firmware flaw was linked to losses of more than $100 million, with suspected total losses nearing $130 million. On Aug. 13, Bitcoin Red Team member and Cashu founder Calle said the exercise showed how quickly AI can surface long-buried weaknesses in mature codebases. The figures do not mean every issue has been confirmed. At the 108-hour mark, only 24.7% of findings had been dynamically reproduced and 29.4% had been reported to project maintainers, while human validation was still ongoing. Even so, the effort already produced at least one serious real-world case: BTCPay Server said a two-factor authentication bypass reported by Bruno Garcia and Ben Carman had been exploited before it was patched, allowing an attacker to obtain node admin credentials and take control of an attached Lightning wallet. The report also highlighted a policy split in AI access. Rob Hamilton of AnchorWatch said OpenAI blocked his attempt to analyze a publicly disclosed codebase after identity verification, while more than 70 custodians, exchanges, miners and developer groups signed an Aug. 10 public letter urging frontier AI labs to provide access to trusted defenders.

Bitcoin security researchers, company founders, and policy advocates are publicly warning that restrictions on leading U.S. AI systems are making legitimate defensive cybersecurity work harder, while Chinese open-source models are producing usable results. Rob Hamilton of AnchorWatch said OpenAI blocked him from analyzing a codebase he had already responsibly disclosed, even after he joined the company’s trusted cyber program and had completed KYC months earlier. He later said he was cut off again within 19 minutes after receiving access to OpenAI’s Daybreak Blue cyber model. Francis Pouliot of Bull Bitcoin said Chinese open models helped identify and patch a money-stealing exploit in a project he was auditing, while American models he pays for refused to review the same patch. Similar complaints came from Bitcoin Core contributor PortlandHODL and Galaxy research head Alex Thorn, who backed a Bitcoin Policy Institute open letter calling for trusted access to frontier AI models for qualified open-source defenders. Published on August 10 and signed by more than 70 digital-asset organizations, the letter asks AI labs for early access to cyber-capable systems, enough compute, secure code-review environments, and direct contact with lab security teams. The pressure intensified after a Coldcard firmware flaw, exploited from July 30, led to the theft of well over $100 million in bitcoin. Since then, the volunteer Bitcoin Red Team says it has scanned 501 projects and logged 7,958 findings, including 1,280 high or critical issues, with most compute spend going to Chinese open-weight models.

A wide set of crypto and adjacent market developments landed over the past 24 hours, led by DeepSeek’s latest financing and a fresh policy push in South Korea. DeepSeek’s operating entity, DeepSeek SeekDeep, completed the first signing round of its new fundraising in Hangzhou on Aug. 10. The round is sized at 50 billion yuan with a pre-money valuation of about 500 billion yuan, up more than 40% from the roughly 350 billion yuan valuation attached to its first round completed in June. The first batch of capital is due as early as Aug. 30, and the company said the proceeds will go toward compute, model research, hiring, and possible domestic listing preparations. In South Korea, People Power Party lawmaker Jeong Seong-guk plans to submit a bill that would delay taxation on income from virtual assets by three years, moving the effective date from Jan. 1, 2027 to Jan. 1, 2030. Under the current framework, gains from virtual asset transfers or lending would be treated as “other income,” with profits above 2.5 million won taxed at 22%, including local income tax. The digest also highlighted the fallout from the Coldcard wallet vulnerability, which Forbes said has now led to about $130 million in stolen bitcoin tied to roughly 2,000 BTC and more than 5,200 addresses. That episode has revived the debate between self-custody and institutional custody, while U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs and spot ether ETFs posted weekly net inflows of $854 million and $245 million, respectively.

Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded total net inflows of $129 million on Aug. 6 U.S. Eastern Time, marking a fourth straight day of positive flows, according to SoSoValue data cited by PANews. BlackRock’s IBIT led the session with $128 million in daily net inflows, bringing its cumulative historical net inflows to $61.088 billion. Morgan Stanley’s MSBT followed with $14.9424 million in daily net inflows, with cumulative historical net inflows reaching $429 million. On the outflow side, VanEck’s HODL posted the largest daily net outflow at $32.7708 million, while its cumulative historical net inflows stood at $1.104 billion. As of publication, the total net asset value of spot Bitcoin ETFs was $78.775 billion. Their net asset ratio, measured as a share of Bitcoin’s total market capitalization, was 6.09%, and cumulative historical net inflows across the segment had reached $52.079 billion.

According to SoSoValue data cited by PANews, bitcoin spot ETFs recorded $244 million in net inflows on Aug. 5, extending the inflow run to three consecutive days. BlackRock's IBIT led all products with $197 million in daily net inflows, lifting its lifetime cumulative net inflow to $60.96 billion. Ark Invest and 21Shares' ARKB followed with $37.63 million, bringing its historical total to $1.346 billion. On the outflow side, VanEck's HODL saw $14.67 million leave the fund, the largest single-day outflow of any spot bitcoin ETF that day, while its cumulative net inflow remains at $1.136 billion. The combined net asset value of all spot bitcoin ETFs stood at $79.206 billion as of press time, equal to a net asset value ratio of 6.09% against the total bitcoin market capitalization. Since inception, the category has accumulated $51.951 billion in net inflows. All amounts are in U.S. dollars. PANews reported the figures on Aug. 6.

Hashdex has announced the closure and liquidation of its Hashdex Bitcoin ETF, ticker DEFI, making it the first U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF to formally wind down. As of July 30, the fund had about $14.7 million in assets under management and held roughly 225.58 BTC. The final trading day is set for Aug. 17, after which the product will be delisted from NYSE Arca, and cash liquidation distributions to remaining shareholders are expected around Aug. 28. The fund began trading in September 2022 as a Bitcoin futures ETF before converting to a spot strategy in March 2024 after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETF applications in January that year. Despite posting cumulative performance of about 166% since inception, DEFI never scaled meaningfully, with assets peaking at roughly $17.54 million. The article also examines the sharply concentrated structure of the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF market, where the five largest funds account for almost all assets, and explains why management fee income at DEFI’s size was far below the level needed to cover custody, compliance, audit, market-making, listing and administrative costs.

The Coldcard incident has led Muneeb to frame three broader lessons for Bitcoin holders and the wider BTC ecosystem. First, he argues that storage should be diversified rather than concentrated in a single setup, with allocations split across regulated exchange-traded funds such as IBIT, multi-key arrangements like CasaHODL’s three-key model, and more sovereignty-focused hardware wallet strategies for advanced users. Second, he says the threat from quantum computing should be treated seriously, not dismissed, because a real break in cryptographic systems could look to users much like funds suddenly leaving a cold wallet. In his view, the time left to prepare may be measured in years, especially as large language models accelerate scientific progress. Third, he argues that Bitcoin has grown too closed off in some areas and should work more closely with security researchers and firms outside the “Bitcoin-only” world. He points to groups such as Trail of Bits and Asymmetric Research as examples of high-level security talent that Bitcoin-focused companies should engage through stronger relationships and formal audit processes.